
57^ 



D 570 
.02 fl35 
no. 5 
Copy 1 



Ar information series 



August, 1917 



A WAR 01 



By 
ROBERT LANSING 

SECRETARY OF STATE 
and 

LOUIS F. POST 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF LABOR 




Published by COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION, Washington. D. C. 

WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFRCE 

1917 



OoUfewte^ ^-- 



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BY ROBERT LANSING, 

Secretary of State. 



We must all realize that we are living in the most momen- 
tous time in all histoiy, in a time when the lives and des- 
tinies of nations are in the balance, when even the civiliza- 
tion, which has taken centuries to build, may crumble 
before the terrible storm which is sweeping over Europe. 
We are not only living in this critical period but we, as a 
nation, have become a participant in the struggle. Having 
cast our lot on the side of the powers allied against the 
Imperial German Government, we will put behind our 
decision the full power and the resources of the Republic. 
We intend to win in this mighty conflict, and we will win 
because our cause is the cause of justice and of right and 
of humanit}^ 

I wonder hoAv many of us comprehend what the outcome 
of this war means to mankind, or, to bring it nearer to each 
one of us, what it means to our country. I sometimes think 
that there prevail very erroneous impressions as to the rea- 
sons wliy.-'ji?« entered the war — not the imjiiecliate reasons, 
but the deep, underlying reasons which affect the life and 
future of the United States and of all other liberty-loving 
nations throughout the world. 

Of course, the immediate cause of our war against Ger- 
many was the announced purpose of the German Govern- 
ment to break its promises as to indiscriminate submarine 
warfare and the subsequent renewal of that ruthless method 
of destruction with increased vigor and brutality. 

While this cause was in itself sufficient to force us to 
enter the war if we would preserve our self-respect, the 
German Government's deliberate breach of faith and its 
utter disregard of right and life liad a iar deeper liieaning, 
a meaning which had been growing more evident as the 
war had progressed and which needed but this act of perfidy 
to bring it home to all thinking Americans. The evil char- 

(3) 



acter of the German Government is laid bare before the 
world. We know now that that Government is inspired 
with ambitions which menace human liberty, and that to 
gain its end it does not hesitate to break faith, to violate 
the most sacred rights, or to perpetrate intolerable acts of 
inhumanity. 

It needed but the words reported to have been uttered by 
the German Chancellor to complete the picture of the char- 
acter of his Government when he announced that the only 
reason why the intensified submarine campaign was de-. 
layed until February last was that sufficient submarines 
could not be built before that time to make the attacks on 
commerce effective. Do you realize that this means, if it 
means anything, that the promises to refrain from brutal 
submarine warfare, which Germany had made to the United 
States, were never intended to be kept, that they were only 
made in order to gain time in which to build more subma- 
rines, and that when the time came to act the German 
promises were unhesitatingly torn to pieces like other 
" scraps of paper." 

It is this disclosure of the character of the Imperial Ger- 
man Government which is the underlying cause of our 
entry into the war. We had doubted, or at least many 
Americans had doubted, the evil purposes of the rulers of 
Germany. Doubt remained no longer. In thB' jlight ■ of 
events we could read the past and see that for a 'quarter of 
a century the absorbing ambition of militaiy oligarchy 
which was the master of the German Empire was for world 
dominion. Every agency in the fields of commerce, indus- 
try, science, and diplomacy had been directed by the Ger- 
man Government to this supreme end. Philosophers and 
preachers taught that the destiny of Germany was to rule 
the world, thus preparing the mind of the German people 
for the time when the mighty engine which the German 
Government had constructed should crush all opposition 
and the German Emperor should rule supreme. 

For nearl}'- three years'we have tviatched the conduct of 
the imperiiir Government, and we have learned more and 
more of the character of that Government and of its aims. 
We came very slowly to a realizing sense that not only was 
the freedom of the European nations at stake but that 



liberty throughout the world was threatened by the power- 
ful autocracy which was seeking to gratify its vast ambition. 

Not impulsively but with deliberation the American peo- 
ple reached the only decision which was possible from the 
standpoint of their own national safety. Congress de- 
clared that a state of war existed between the United States 
and the Imperial Government of Germany, and this coun- 
try united with the other liberal nations of the earth to 
crush the power which sought to erect on the ruins of de- 
mocracy a world empire greater than that of Greece or 
Eome or the caliphs. 

The President has said, with the wonderful ability which 
he has to express aptly a great thought in a single phrase, 
that " the world must be made safe for democracy." In that 
thought there is more than the establishment of liberty and 
self-government for all nations — there is in it the hope of 
an enduring peace. 

I do not know in the annals of history an instance where a 
people, with truly democratic institutions, permitted their 
government to wage a war of aggression, a war of conquest. 
Faithful to their treaties, sympathetic with others seeking 
self-development, real democracies, whether monarchial or 
republican in their forms of government, desire peace with 
their neighbors and with all mankind. 

ivWei^ every people on earth able to express their will, there 
TTOuM-beTiOf wars of aggression, and, if there *«*ea'e.no'?wars of 
aggression, tlieit there would be no wars, and lasting^ipeace 
would come to this earth. The only way that a people can 
express their will is through democratic institutions. There- 
fore, when the world is made safe for democracy, when that 
great principle prevails, universal peace will be an accom- 
plished fact. 

Ko na^tion or people will benefit more than the United 
States when that time comes. But it has not jet come. A 
great people, ruled in thought and word, as well as in deed, 
by the most sinister Government of modern times, is strain- 
ing every nerve to ;supp]ant democracy by; the autocracy 
which they have, • been, taught to ^yorship, : When wiH the 
German people awaken to the truth? When will they arise 
in their might and cast off the yoke and become their own 
masters? I fear that it will not be until the physical might 



of the united democracies of the world has destroyed for- 
ever the evil ambitions of the military rulers of Germany and 
iibert)^ triumphs over its archenemy. 

And yet in spite of these truths vi'hich have been brought 
to light in these last three years I wonder how many Ameri- 
cans feel that our democracy is in peril, that our liberty needs 
protection, that the United States is in real danger from the 
malignant forces which are seeking to imix)se their will upon 
the world, as they have upon Germany and her deceived 
allies. 

Let us understand once for all that this is no war to estab- 
lish an abstract principle of right. It is a war in which the 
future of the United States is at stake. If any among you 
has the idea that we are fighting othei-s' battles and not our 
own, the sooner he gets away from that idea the better it will 
be for him, the better it will be for ail of us. 

Imagine Germany victor in Europe because the United 
States remained neutral. Who then, think you, would be 
the next victim of those who are seeking to be masters of the 
whole earth? Would not this country with its enormous 
wealth arouse the cupidity of an impoverished though tri- 
umphant Germany ? Would not this democracy be the only 
obstacle between the autocratic rulers of Germany and 
their supreme ambition? Do you think that they would 
withhold their hand from so rich a prize ? 

Let me then ask you, would it be easier or wisei*^ for this 
country single-handed to resist a German Empire, flushed 
with victory and with great armies and navies at its com- 
mand, than to unite with the bra A'e opponents of that Empire 
in ending now and for all time this menace to our future? 

Primarily, then, every man who crosses the ocean to fight 
on foreign soil against the armies of the German Emperor 
goes forth to fight for his country and for the preservation 
of those things for which our forefathers were willing to 
die. To those who thus offer themselves we owe the same 
debt that we owe to those men who in the past fought on 
American soil in the cause of liberty. No, not the same debt, 
but a greater one. It calls for more patriotism, more self- 
denial, and a truer vision to wage war on distant shores than 
to repel an invader or defend one's home. I, therefore, con- 
gratulate you, young men, in your choice of service. You 



have done a splendid thing. You have earned already the 
gratitude of your countrymen and of generations of Ameri- 
cans to come. Your battle flags will become the cherished 
trophies of a nation which will never forget those who bore 
them in the cause of liberty. 

I know that some among you may consider the idea that 
Germany would attack us, if she won this war, to be improb- 
able; but let him who doubts remember that the improb- 
able, yes, the impossible, has been happening in this war 
from the beginning. If you had been told prior to August, 
1914, that the German Government would disregard its 
solemn treaties and send its armies into Belgium, v\^ould 
wantonly burn Louvain, would murder defenseless people, 
would extort ransoms from conquered cities, would carry 
away men and women into slavery, would, like vandals of 
old, destroy some of history's most cherished monuments, 
and would with malicious purpose lay waste the fairest fields 
of France and Belgium, you would have indignantly denied 
the possibility. You would have exclaimed that Germans, 
lovers of art and learning, would never permit such foul 
deeds. To-day you know that the unbelievable has happened, 
that all these crimes have been committed, not under the 
impulse of passion, but under official orders. 

Again, if you had been told before the war that German 
submarine commanders would sink peaceful vessels of com- 
nxence ,an<i'0end to sucklen death men, women, and little 
children, you would have declared such scientific brutality 
to be impossible. Or, if you had been told that German 
aviators would fly over thickly populated cities scattering 
missiles of death and destruction with no other purpose than 
to terrorize the innocent inhabitants, you would have de- 
nounced the very thought as unworthy of belief and as a 
calumny upon German honor. Yet, God help us, these 
things have come to pass, and iron crosses have rewarded 
the perpetrators. 

But there is more, far more, which might be added to this 
record of unbelievable things which the German Government 
has done. I only need to mention the attempt of the foreign 
office at Berlin to bribe Mexico to make war upon us by 
promising her American territory. It was only one of many 
intrigues which the German Government was carrying on 



8 

in many lands. Spies and conspirators were sent through- 
out the world. Civil discord was encouraged to weaken the 
potential strength of nations which might be obstacles to 
the lust of Germany's rulers for world mastery. Those of 
German blood who owed allegiance to other countries were 
appealed to to support the fatherland, Avhich beloved name 
masked the military clique a.t Berlin. 

Some day I hope that the whole tale may be told. It will 
be an astounding tale indeed. But enough has been told 
so that there no longer remains the shadow of a doub.t as to 
the character of Germany's rulers, of their amazing ambi- 
tion for world empire, and of their intense hatred for 
democracy. 

The day has gone by when we .can measure possibilities 
by past experiences or when we believe that any physical 
obstacle is so great or any moral influence is so potent as to 
cause the German autocracy to abandon its mad purpose of 
world conquest. 

It was the policy of those who plotted and made ready for 
the time to accomplish the desire of the German rulers to 
lull into false security the great nations which they intended 
to subdue, so that when the storm broke they would be un- 
prepared. How well they succeeded you know. But democ- 
racy no longer sleeps. It is fully awake to the menace which 
threatens it. The American people, trustful and friendly, 
wer« reluctantto' believe that imperialism agaij3r,^jtij:^f\tened 
the peace and liberty of the world. Conviction ;Came to them 
at last, and with it prompt action. The American Nation 
arrayed itself with the other great democracies of the earth 
against the genius of evil which broods over the destinies 
of central Europe. 

JSTo thought of material gain and no thought of material 
loss impelled this action. Inspired by the highest motives 
American manhood prepared to risk all for the right. I am 
proud of my country. I am proud of my countrymen. I am 
proud of our national character. With lofty purpose, with 
patriotic fervor, with intense earnestness the American 
democracy has drawn the sword, which it will not sheathe 
until the baneful forces of absolutism go down defeated and 
broken. 



Who can longer donbt — and there have been many who 
have doubted in these critical days — the power of that eternal 
spirit of freedom which lives in every true American heart ? 

I am firmly convinced that the independence of no nation 
is safe, that the liberty of no individual is sure, until the 
military despotism which holds the German people in the 
hollow of its hand has been made impotent and harmless 
forever. Appeals to justice, to moral obligation, to honor, 
no longer avail with such a power. There is but one way to 
restoie peace to the world, and that is by overcoming the 
physical might of German imperialism by force of arms. 

For its own safety, as well as for the cause of human lib- 
erty, this great Republic is marshaling its armies and prepar- 
ing v\dth all its vigor to aid in ridding Germany, as well as 
the world, of the most ambitious and most unprincipled 
autocracy which has arisen to stay the wheels of progress 
and imperil Christian civilization. 

It is to this great cause you, who iire present here to-night, 
like thousands of other loyal Americans, have dedicated 
yourseh'es. Upon each one of you much depends. You are 
going forth into foreign lands, not only as guardians of the 
flag of your country and of the liberties of your countrymen, 
but as guardians of the national honor of the United States. 
American character will be judged by your conduct; Amer- 
ican spirit by your deeds. As jou maintain yourselves cour- 
ageously and honorably, so will you bring glory to the flag 
v'hich v/e all love as the emblem of our national unity and 
independence. 

I know that it is unnecessary to emphasize the responsibili- 
ties which will rest ujDon you as you lead the men under your 
command. To their officers they will look for guidance and 
example, not only in the battle line, but in the camp and on 
the march. Your responsibilities are great. As you meet 
them so will your services be measured by your country. 

It is in the toil and danger of so great an adventure as 
you are soon to experience that a man's true character will 
become manifest. He will be brought face to face with the 
realities. The little things which once engrossed his thought 
and called forth his energies will be forgotten in the stern 
events of his new life. The sternness of it all will not de- 
prive him of the satisfaction which comes from doing his 
8368°— 17 2 



10 

best. As he found gratification and joy in the peaceful pur- 
suits of the old life, so will he find a deeper gratification and 
greater joy in serving his country loyally and doing his part 
in molding the future aright. 

And, when your task is completed, w^hen the grim days of 
battle are over, and you return once more to the quiet life 
of your profession or occupation, which you have so gener- 
ously abandoned at your country's call, you will find in the 
gratitude of your countrymen an ample reward for the great 
sacrifice which you have made. 

If enthusiasm and ardor can make success sure, then we, 
Americans, have no cause for anxiety, no reason to doubt 
the outcome of the corifiict. But enthusiasm and ardor are 
not all, they must be founded on a profound conviction of 
the righteousness of our cause and on an implicit faith that 
the God of Battles will strengthen the arm of him who fights 
for the right. In the time of stress and peril, when a man 
stands face to face with death in its most terrible forms, 
God will not desert him who puts his trust in Him. It is 
at such a time that the eternal verities will be disclosed. 
It is then, when you realize that existence is more than this 
life and that over our destinies watches an all-powerful and 
compassionate God, you will stand amidst the storm of battle 
unflinching and unafraid. 

There is no higher praise that can be bestowed upon a 
soldier of the Eepublic than to say that he served his coun- 
try faithfully and trusted in his God. Such I earnestly hope 
will be the praise to which each one of you will be entitled 
Avhen peace returns to this suffering earth, and mankind re- 
joices that the world is made safe for democracy. 



BY LOUIS F. POST, 

Assistant Secretary of Labor. 



The United States has gone into the world war in self- 
defense. Other purposes are more ideal and also just; but 
this is the cause that gives us our warrant of v/ar by even the 
narrowest rules of international orderliness which civiliza- 
tion has yet evolved. We are resisting armed invasion. The 
necessity for it is evident from the most familiar facts of 
German history. For half a century German empire 
builders have made no secret of their policy of VN/^orld con- 
quest. For the past three years the German Government 
has given to their policy of world conquest vigorous life 
in Belgium and in France. And when that policy and those 
invasions are considered in connection with the defiant and 
death-clealing assaults by the German Government upon the 
sovereignty of the United States in February and March, 
1917, the defensive necessity of our entering the war is 
demonstrated. 

Historicall}'', those culminating events hark back to the 
Franco-Prussian War. That struggle of nearly half a cen- 
tury ago, provoked by Bismarck with a trick as all the world 
now knows, was the initial grand play in the Prussian mili- 
tary game for world empire. At its close the Prussian plans 
for larger conquests began taking on distinctive shape. They 
had developed out of a political philosophy which empha- 
sizes the autocratic doctrine of duties in opposition to the 
democratic doctrine of rights. Elsewhere the doctrine of 
rights, which had inspired historic revolts against feudalistic 
regimes of obedience, was becoming hospitable to the idea 
of a natural balance of rights and duties — rights to life, for 
instance, in balance with corresponding duties to let live. 

1 Revised and reprinted from The Putlic, July 27 and August 3, 
(11) 



12 

But in Prussianized Germany the feudal principle of duty 
to superiors in station was revived as a new discovery and 
invested with new sanctions. 

German projectors of a world empire — philosophers, mili- 
tarists, historians, scholars, statesmen, courtiers — set abput 
the inculcation, not always b}' logic or gentle persuasion, of 
autocratic theories of duty as the supreme obligation of men. 
Distorted echoes of those teachings were often heard in 
xSjnerican universities and from American platforms in dis- 
couragement of democratic progress here. These American 
echoes usually stressed the obligation as one between indi- 
viduals, which is after all not so very different essentially 
from the principle of a balance of duties and rights. But 
this was not the thought that the molders of Prussian em- 
pire stressed. The essence of their theory of duties is mili- 
taristic. It implies a duty of obedience to the word of com- 
mand. It requires subordination at all times and in all 
things to " the state," which, in the Prussianistic imagina- 
tion, is personified by the Kaiser. Exalting " the state " as 
the prim© object of individual devotion and the Kaiser as 
its visible deity, these Prussian promotors of despotism 
established, almost in the center of Europe and in an age of 
developing democracy, a reactionary empire of ^' divine 
light," which they dedicated to a world-conquering purpose. 

Though the King of Prussia by " divine right " of birth 
is German Kaiser only by constitutional derivation, this 
makes no difference. The German constitution is of a texture 
and the despotic Prussian spirit of a character to invest the 
Kaiser with the King's inherited divinit3^ There is, to be 
sure, a constitutional parliament for Germany; but it is 
ruled by an imperial chancellor responsible to the Kaiser, 
whose appointment he holds, whose purposes he serves, and 
who can dismiss him at will. Except for a fragile right of 
veto, it has no more legislative power than a village de- 
bating society. In Prussian municii^al governments, too, the 
Kaiser controls the governing officials. Nor is this auto- 
cratic "state" political alone. It is also supreme in its in- 
fluence upon education and morals. Children's minds are 
molded by its educational processes in accordance with the 
Government's conception of what is best for "the state" — 
not for the clilld, unless b}^ lucky coincidence, but for " the 



13 

state.'* Like its political adjustments, the Prussianized edu- 
cational machinery is pyramided up to the Kaiser. From 
elementary schools its wheels revolve with automatic regu- 
larity and mechanical precision through higher schools and 
universities to a place in the exquisitely geared machinery 
of " the state," at which all is moved and mastered by the 
Kaiser's touch of a governmental button. The Kaiser him- 
self is under the influence of a dominant caste — agrarian and 
militarj^ — of which, in virtue of his birth, he is the most 
worshipful grandmaster. 

Caste gradations are characteristic of this mystical Ger- 
man " state." To the Prussianistic institutions of Germany 
they are what democracy is to countries more advanced in 
civilization — the spirit of the place, the thought to conjure 
Avith, the sign to conquer by. They do not belong with those 
mere survivals of caste Avhich distort the clemocrac}^ of 
other countries, but are a system of caste government which 
is cultivated as a social and political necessity and as one 
of the indispensable factors of " kultur." The German child 
is educated for the caste in which he is born. Prejudices of 
higher toward lower grades of caste and subserviency from 
the lower to the higher are sedulouslj^ fostered for " state " 
reasons. University professors are flanged for caste grooves. 
Clergjmien and school teachers are congealed in caste molds. 
Workingmen are graded off and graded through b}^ caste 
variations. Women are strait- jacketed in castes of sex, 
appendant in series to the caste levels of their respective 
men folk. And complexities of military caste, interweaved 
with a land-nobility caste, rule the others — subject, of 
course, to the Kaiser, who is at the apex of these caste 
gradations. 

Out of it ail has come a stupendous social and political 
machine. Individual impulses have been ossified and moral 
perceptions inverted. Even the scientific and the religious 
groups have been shaped on caste lines. And this machine 
is efficient. iSTo blame to such as worship efficiency for 
the sake of efficiency if they bow the head and bend the 
knee at the altars of the German system. There are those, 
however, who value efficiency not for its own sake but for 
the sake of the worthiness of its objects and the usefulness 
of its accomplishments. To such as these the prospect of 



14 

a world- widte imposition of a Priissianistic "state" by 
military conquest is not inviting. It would be abhorrent to 
every democratic instinct and at variance with every demo- 
cratic thought. 

Yet precisely that purpose has been the manifest object of 
German efficiency. In so far as it has served useful ends 
in social life those ends have been served as incidents to the 
purpose of world conquest. Except in so far as the efficiency 
has )3een for the mere sake of being efficient, or for the sake 
of subordinating the German people — body, mind, and 
soul — to the dominion of a caste-bound " state," its uncon- 
cealed design has been to make military conquest of the rest 
of mankind. The Prussianized German Government coveted 
"a plai'e in the sun" where its shadow would hang over 
all the earth; and efficiency for military conquest was its 
method. Conquest was not the purpose of the masses of the 
German people. But it was the purpose of their ruling 
caste and its royal chief; and the German people, obsessed 
with Prussian " kultur," were an impotent factor in giving 
political form to their instinctive love of democracy and 
peace. So the Government of Germany has, for purposes 
of world conquest, been able to devote years of time and 
volumes of human energy to making nuirvelously efficient a 
gigantic war machine. By inculcating an automatic sense 
of dutj^ to " the state," through the ramiiications of mechan- 
ized " kultur," and developing a spirit of military conquest 
as a necessity of normal German life and national existence, 
it has sustained in Germany, in times of peace, that ab- 
normal public opinion which in countries like ours is sus- 
tained only in times of war. It has taught the German 
people to think of luight as the only measure of right and 
of war as a necessary element in the life of nations and an 
indispensable factor of "kultur." It has impressed upon 
them the duty of making aggressive war not only for the 
good of Germany, but for the good of the human race. And, 
teaching the vital importance of seizing " the n\ost favorable 
moment" for begiiming Avars of Ciinquest, it encouraged 
a Germany-wide toasting of "the Day" when the conquer- 
ing moAement should begin. 

After moj'e than -iO years of such preparation for forcibly 
extending Prussian imperialism over the world, " the Day " 



15 

came. The " most favorable moment " for further Prussian 
conquest was seen and seized by the military caste of the 
empire. The German Government, a young and vigorous 
despotism, armed to the teeth, was ready and eager to begin 
its next war of conquest. Russia, a decrepit autocracy, had 
but recently suffered military disaster. France, so far ad- 
vanced from her old lust for revenge that the antiwar party 
had just won the parliamentary elections, w^as neither in- 
clined to make a war nor prepared for w^aging one. Great 
Britain, her parties in power (Liberal, Labor, and Irish), all 
antiwar parties on the whole and in ever}^ respect the an- 
tithesis of the party in power in Germany — v^^as averse to 
war and, without further preparation, hardh'- capable of suc- 
cessfully waging even defensive warfare. Circumstances had 
thus conspired to make this moment " the most favorable " 
possible for the German Government to begin its war move 
for world conquest. Had any doubt remained, an incident 
occurred to stifle it. Just at this " most favorable moment," 
when the German Government was hairtrigger ready for 
war, and France, the nation first to be crushed, was wholly 
unready, as was Great Britain also, a roj'^al prince was assas- 
sinated. The crime was in no sense a cause for war ; but to 
the German war lords it was a good enough excuse. As 
one member of the German Parliament dared to say to them 
with bitter irony, they welcomed that assassination as " a 
gift from heaven." A war of conquest was what they 
wanted, and a war of conquest they made. Had not "the 
Day " arrived ? Was not " the most favorable moment " at 
hand ? 

In the twinkling of an eye the Kaiser's military machine 
assembled. Every man dropped into " his place " at the 
word. Almost before the western world suspected a possi- 
bility of war, the German Government had seized Belgium 
and sent a huge army of invasion on its conquering way 
toward Paris. In a month the invader was to have been 
again in that city which nearly 50 years before he had 
beleaguered and starved into surrender. From there he was 
to have offered a German peace. Its conditions would have 
been framed to crush France so completely that she could 
never resist a German march of conquest again. The least 
of its exactions would have been a strategic harbor on the 



16 



English channel — a pomt from which the next "svar of Ger- 
man conquest Avcstward could be waged Avitli advantage 
agahist Great Britain. And this German peace — a truce 
between conquests — would have endured until another "most 
f aA'orable moment " for conquest had made further invasion 
by the German Government " necessary for the German peo- 
ple "" and '" the good of the human race/' The treaty of peace 
would then have been another " scrap of iDaper." 

But the unexpected happened. The efficient war machine 
somehoAv pj'oved inefficient at a decisive moment. The Ger- 
man march of conquest from Berlin to tlie Atlantic coast 
was checl:ed. Only checked, however, for the invader has 
not vet ii'one l)ack into his own countrv. His war of con- 




(lue^i in western Europe still hangs in the balance. For three 
years he has occupied Belgium and northern France. His 
possession is without the slightest color of any right but 
military might. He can neither justify nor excuse his in- 
Aasion by even the semblance of a defensive plea. His hold 
upon those countries accords with no other explanation than 
a stupendous attempt to realize in part his long-fostered 
policy of world conquest. 

And now, pursuant to that policy and for its more com- 
plete realization, he has thrown his western battle line be- 
yond Belgium, beyond France, beyond Great Britain, many 
leagues out upon the Atlantic Ocean toward the United 
States. 



17 

This advance of the German westward from his own fron- 
tiers into and through Belgium, into northern France, and, 
overleapmg the rest of France, out upon the Atlantic to the 
twentieth meridian, is indicated by the shaded part of the 
accompanying map. 

By the menacing extension of his battle line out upon the 
Atlantic Ocean toward the United States, and his claim to 
military sovereignty over the intervening waters, the Ger- 
man Kaiser challenged the United States to fight or fall 
back. He thereby claimed this area of the ocean as a Prus- 
sian lake. Had he won the European war he could have 
extended his claim to the whole ocean, unless we ourselves 
had subsequently broken the peace and made war upon him 
to recover what for the sake of peace with him we had un- 
resistingly yielded at a more favorable time for defense. 
Had he lost the war, with what grace could we have claimed 
restoration by the victorious allies of the ocean rights which, 
during their war, we had yielded to their foe ? 

But our concern in the matter comes closer home even 
than that. When the Kaiser notified the Government of the 
United States that after February 1, 1917, he would sink 
at sight American vessels entering the ocean area indicated 
by the shaded parts of the map referred to, he declared war 
against the United States. When within that area he, began 
sinking American vessels at sight, as he had notified our 
^-^'Gb%i*ri^ii6nt he would do, and killed American crews and 
passengers sailing on them under the American flag, he 
made toar upon the United States. It was on his part 
invasive war, a war of conquest, precisely the kind of war 
upon this country which he had made two and a half years 
earlier upon Belgium and France. 

Before that declaration of war and those acts of war, we 
had reason to fear the German Government, reason for 
indignation, reason for resentment. We might have gone to 
war with no slight reasons ; and that we did not was because 
our Government was then, as it still is, under an administra- 
tion which does not revel in thoughts of war ; it abhors war. 
But when the German Government advanced its invasive bat- 
tle line out upon the open Atlanliicili our di^e'ctioJi^ aS^rting 
its sovereignty there as it was asserting it in Belgium and 



18 

northern France, and killing American citizens on American 
ships under the American flag upon waters where they had 
as good right to be as in their oAvn cities, States or harbors, 
then a new element came into the case. Our Republic was 
invasively and defiantly put upon the defensive. The most 
pacific administration the United States has ever had could 
no longer keep us out of the war without putting us into 
national subjection to an alien power. The German Govern- 
ment had then left no alternative to this Government but 
war or surrender. 

Our ships might indeed have stayed aAvay from the ocean 
area over wdiich the German Government thus asserted exclu- 
sive sovereignty. Their crews and passengers might have 
remained at home in obedience to the Kaiser's command. In 
obedience to that command. our Government might have or- 
dered them to do so. But none of this Avould have been any 
safer to our independence, any more in the interest of peace 
between this countr}^ and Germany, or any more reasonable 
on any count, than if the Kaiser had ordered us to stay off 
all the ocean outside our oAvn territorial waters, and we had 
obeyed. 

If the United States ought, in conscience or from policies 
of i)eace, to have yielded to the Kaiser's extension of his 
invasive battle line out upon the ocean to the twentieth meri- 
dian in our direction, wc should have had no reason in con- 
science or peace policy for forcibly resisting its extension at 
the Kaiser's command to the thirtieth degree, nor to the 
sixtieth, nor even to the very 3-mile limit off our own coast 
line. There is no argmnent in opposition to our war against 
the German Kaiser as a war of self-defense which would not 
be as reasonable if, in his lust of world conquest, he were 
immediately approaching our water frontiers across the 
ocean, as almost three years ago, obsessed with that lust, he 
approached the land frontiers of France across Belgium. 

Of course, on principles of nonresistance the United States 
w^ould not be justified in either case. Nor should one be 
hasty to deny that nonresistance is good strategy as well as 
good morals. It has sanctions that can not be lightly 
ignored, and there are historical instances of its potency. 
At all events no high-minded person or noble-spirited people 
will countenance bullying denunciation or tolerate maltreat- 



19 

ment of those among them who preach and practice nonre- 
sistance. The memory of Tolstoy forbids. But the policy 
of national nonresistance to wars of conquest is not 3^et a 
social factor. Still feeling its way forward, the world is 
unappreciative of any better defense to invasive war than 
defensive war. As one of the most idealistic and deservedly 
influential newspapers of our countrj;' and time has phrased 
the thought, " The world has not reached the place where 
might can be met with argument, or where the wrath of 
nations can be turned away with a soft answer." It is by the 
test of the social toe mark of our own time that our war 
against the German invader must be tried; and by that test 
the war we wage is a necessary war because it is a war of 
national self-defense. 

That there are more ideal justifications has been intimated 
above. Our war is no less just than necessary as a war of 
self-defense; and it is just also because it is a war in defense 
of the peaceable democracies of the world. This justifica- 
tion, eloquentl}^ made by the President in his war proclama- 
tion, can not be too often repeated, nor too clearly appre- 
hended. " We are now about to accept gauge of battle with 
tliis natural foe to liberty," said the President, " and shall, if 
necessarj^, spend the whole force of the Nation to check 
and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, 
noiD that loe see the fcocts with no veil of false pretense 
about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the uwrU 
and for the. liberation of its peoples, the German people in- 
cluded ; for the rights of nations,, great and small, and the 
privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and 
obedience. TJie world 'must l/e 'made sa-fe for de-mocraey " — • 
an injury to one is the concern of all, " Its peace must be 
planted upon the lastilig foundations of political liberty. 
We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, 
no dominion " — our war is not of the Prussianistic order. 
" We shall fight for the things which we have always carried 
nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the right of those 
who submit to authority to have a voice in their own gov- 
ernments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a 
universal dominion of right hj such a concert of free peoples 
as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and mahe the 
world itself at last free.'''' 



20 

Those are the ideals for which we are to struggle while 
in the war. They are the ideals for which we are to stand 
in adjusting terms of peace when the war is over. And 
they are none the less genuine because in our war struggle 
in their behalf we temporarily suspend our own guaranties 
of individual liberty in order to make the war effective as 
our people would have it, instead of a failure as the war 
lords of Germany would like it to be. This is part of the 
necessar};^ cost of all wars for democracy. Our Eevolutionary 
War, with its democratic purpose and outcome, could not 
have been won by democratic methods. The French Revo- 
lution, with its democratic aspirations and its overthrow of 
ancient feudalism, was it not sustained coercively? Our 
Civil War for a " government of the people, for the people, 
and by the people " was not prosecuted in very strict accord- 
ance with democratic forms or deference to democratic 
guaranties. It is not, however, with the higher ideals for 
which Ave are now at war that this discussion is especially 
concerned, except as they may be involved in the necessity 
for defending ourselves against an invading foe. Back of 
those ideals are the plain workaday facts to Avhich the Presi- 
dent referred as the moving cause of our going into the war, 
when he advised Congress that " the recent course of the 
Imperial German Government " had been " in fact nothing 
less than war against the Govier7iinent.and..peojple,jof.ythe 
VnUed Btatm'^ byion^r sverf o,^ su i{f^ .80x.r.6J3 bsiinlJ aril 
i; On those fac^s,- the 'Congi-ess of the Unitedi States, the 
only authority known to our "fundamental law for such 
action, and through the only process that would have been 
binding upon our Government, accepted the war challenge 
of the German Kaiser. No referendum could have had any 
legal force. Nor would it have had any probable advisory 
value. It would only have offered another opportunity for 
Prussian diplomacy. The obligation Avas upon Congress; the 
only poAver to decide Avas in Congress; the only aA^ailable 
reflection of public opinion short of revolution Avas through 
Congress. And Congress accepted this challenge of war. 
It did feo'ii^Ab'pnA'ate iriteredt but in 'tM J>nblic interest. 
It did so becatise {he German GoA'ernment Avas making actual 
war upon the Government and people of the United States. 



21 

The challenge was not accepted while it remained a " scrap 
of paper." But when this challenge of war was vitalized by 
deeds of war, when in accordance with its terms of defiance 
American ships were sunk and American lives were taken 
under the American flag by the Government of Germany 
within an ocean area on which the rights of this country are 
as indefeasible as its rights to its own territory, but over 
which the German Government had invasively assumed ex- 
clusive sovereignty, then Congress accepted the challenge of 
war. 

There was no possible alternative. This self-constituted 
enemy of ours, after long fostering a policy of conquest, had 
actually invaded Belgium and France pursuant to that pol- 
icy. By that long-fostered policy, he had proved his invasive 
intent. By his actual invasion he had transmuted invasive 
intent into invasive action. By his diplomatic negotiations 
with Mexico and his operations within the United States he 
had disclosed his invasive intent toward the United States 
itself as one of the objectives of his general policy. By 
throwing his invasive battle line out upon the ocean to the 
twentieth meridian, in the direction of the United States, 
with a threat to the United States, he confirmed his hostile 
intent toward this country. His destruction of American 
ships and American lives under the American flag within 
that, ocean area was the overt act of his aggressive war upon 
the United States. For us to have ignored the manifest iii- 
tent after it had been vitalized by the overt act would have 
been to surrender at discretion. So our war with the auto- 
cratic German Government, if it involved no ideals at all of 
the loftier or less selfish tj^pe, would nevertheless be justified 
as a necessary war of national self-defense. 

We are resisting invasion as truly as if our call to arms 
had been to check a hostile army marching northward 
through Mexico or southward from Quebec. And in sending 
soldiers to France to help the French, the British, and the 
Belgians drive the invader away from their home countries 
and back into his, we are defending our own home country 
under the same njecessity as if we were advancing into Ganacja 
or Mexico to meet an approaching .army of conquest. While 
the German Kaiser is in France or Belgium he is a menace 
to the United States, now that he has demonstrated his 



22 

hostil« intent toward this country ; and no peace can be made 
with safety to our independence until he has left the places 
he has invaded and gone back to his own frontiers. 

It might possibly have been better to assent to his conquer- 
ing the world, nation by nation, until our turn came, than 
to enter into the awful carnage which resistance to his foul 
ambitions demands ; but that was not the question. "VVe were 
not confronted with a problem of war or no war. Our 
problem was one of resisting conquest now, in a war in 
Europe and with allies, or later on in our own country 
and without allies. 

o 



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